Habits. Everyone has them, good or bad, yet we have them all. Habit by definition is a recurrent, often unconscious pattern of behavior that is acquired through frequent repetition. How habits are made, how can you quit bad habits, and most importantly how do habits influence your business. Lets discuss it further in this post.

Lets Talk About Your Habits…

Lets first see what other famous and successful people have to say about habits.

“A habit is something you can do without thinking - which is why most of us have so many of them. ” Frank A. Clark

“Bad habits are like a comfortable bed, easy to get into, but hard to get out of.” Unknown

“First we form habits, then they form us. Conquer your bad habits or they will conquer you.” Rob Gilbert

How Habits Influence Your Internet Business

I also have my bad habits that I am trying to fight right now, because they are taking away a great deal of productivity. For example, I know couple of habits that I share with many internet marketers.

For example every morning when I turn on the PC I automatically without any thinking, I visit couple of forums - digital point forum, warrior forum and few more. Yeah, it is great to find out what’s going on in the internet marketing world, because as we know, then internet is changing uberfast and it’s really hard to follow everything that is happening. Then again forums are one of the biggest time wasters known to an internet marketer. I have had days when before I wanted to complete my daily goals, I visited a forum. It’s all great and fun, but later I realized that I have just spent 5 hours lurking forums, reading, etc. Not only that my time was wasted, I also didn’t complete none of my daily goals, and the biggest pain in the ass after a long session lurking forums is that I had a massive information overload. My head was full, I just couldn’t do anything to complete my daily goals. Try to read warrior forum for example for 5 hours straight, and you’ll get the idea how I was feeling.

• Goals completed that day - zero.
• Knowledge gained that would help me to complete my goals - near zero. Mostly the information was useless for me, or I already knew that.
• Productivity that day - none
• Money made that day - zero.

And this result occurred because of my not-so-good habit.

Visiting forums is fun, and sometimes useful if you find the right information. But then again, I suggest you only to visit forums after you have completed your daily tasks and goals. Do that when you have completed everything that you planned.

The other mass time waster - email. Yeah, we all mostly communicate trough emails, we talk about new Joint Ventures via emails, we talk about advertising via emails, we get some hefty cool offers from other marketers and people via email. Email indeed is essential for our businesses. Then again it’s a massive time waster. When you think you have just replied to every email, you click the “Send/Receive” button of your email browser, and woolaah - you have another 5 new emails. it takes for you ~40 min to reply to them, you click the “Send/Receive” button again, and holy cow - 6 new emails. The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round.

My advice is only to reply to emails after you have done your daily goals. I suggest you to read the received emails, but don’t reply to them if they’re not urgent. Just reply to the really urgent ones - for example if your mother in law is asking when she can come and visit you. In this kind of situation the faster your reaction is, the better. You know - you’re sick, or you’re going out of town, the usual “mother in law stuff”.

One more email time waster - email subscriptions. I believe we all have them, and the irony is that most of the emails that come from the people you have subscribed to receive the free report are pure crap. Most of them try to sell you something, and fill up your email box. Not all email marketers are like this, but most of them are. Just unsubscribe the email lists that don’t provide anything valuable to you.

Making New Habits and Dropping The Old Ones

I have read some great books about human’s psychology, because marketing is a great part of psychology, and according to some psychologists - you must avoid the habit that you want to drop about 10 times. To make a new habit - you must do the thing for 30 times in a row to make it as a habit.

For example - if you want to drop the email checking habit each morning, you got to avoid it 10 times. Which means, you will have to avoid the email checking 10 mornings in a row. After that your mind will not try to automatically pursue the habit. It’s going to be hard to drop a habit, especially the ones that you have been doing for months or even years. But each morning when you turn on your PC you have to remember and force yourself not to check the emails, after 10 mornings or so you won’t have to think about it, the habit will be out of your subconscious mind.

To make a new “healthy for your business habit” - you have to do the thing for 30 times in a row. Let’s say you want to create a habit that will lead you to write a new article every day. For 30 days you have to force yourself to write a new article each day, if you have successfully done this, after 30 days your subconscious mind will accept that as a habit, and it’s going to become your routine. And after these 30 days you will create a new article every day without forcing yourself much.

WARNING: If you’re trying to make a new habit, you must do the action 30 times in a row. If you want to create a new article each day. you must force yourself to write for 30 days in a row. If you’ll miss one day to do that, you’ll have to start the process all over again to acquire the new habit.

This is the power of habits. It really influences your business, your character and your success.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.” Aristotle

What’s your say? What do you think about habits? I would be happy if could  share your habits by commenting.

Should you reply to every comment? Well, there are bloggers who say that replying to each comment is essential, some totally avoid it, and some answer few comments only. What’s the best?

Should You Reply To Every Comment?

The Golden Middle Path

Replying to each comment is little bit exhausting, not that it’s physically hard, but that you always got to think what to answer. Sure if the commentator does indeed provide solid content via the comment, then it’s good for SEO, and will hopefully improve the discussion, and this will cause more and more people to join the debate. So should you really answer to every comment? I have been doing that - answering to almost every comment, sure the reader maybe feels noticed and respected if the author replies to the comment, then again I can’t think much of what to answer to a comment that sounds like this: “Great Post”.  Sure, you can say “thanks” or whatever, but will that do any good? Maybe…

Then again, you should always write your post in such a way that it would encourage people to participate in the discussion. Give some very clear questions to your reader, ask for the reader’s opinion and point of view. Negative comments are actually kinda cool, negative comments mostly cause massive discussion and debate, I have seen this especially happening where the blogger shows his/her earnings and such. And if you’re a forum lurker then you have probably spotted that those threads which have negative replies and where the opinions don’t match are the longest ones. This is because it attracts attention, then again, on your blog you should avoid falme wars. Negative comments that actually contain some healthy criticism are great and may improve you and your blog.

What’s your say? Do you like when the blogger responds to every comment, or you, as a blogger - do you respond to every comment?

There are times when our energy just kinda runs out for a time. There are times when just feel kinda lost in our goals or whatever we are doing. These are 50 quotes that always help me to kick my butt up and continue to climb up for my goals. Hope these will help ya’ if there is such a need.

“The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack in will.”

Vince Lombardi

“Impatience never commanded success.”

Edwin H. Chapin

“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude”. -

Thomas Jefferson

“They can because they think they can“.

Virgil

“Try not to become a man of success but a man of value”. - Albert Einstein

“To find what you seek in the road of life,
the best proverb of all is that which says:
“Leave no stone unturned.”".

Edward Bulwer Lytton

“If you can imagine it, you can achieve it; if you can dream it, you can become it”.

William Arthur Ward

“If you would create something, you must be something”.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Every artist was first an amateur.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.”

Epictetus

“If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favourable”.

Seneca

“What ever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”

Napolean Hill

“Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there!”

Will Rogers

“When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low, and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don’t you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
when he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow,
You may succeed with another blow.

Success is failure turned inside out,
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit,
It’s when things seem worst, that
You Must Not Quit.”

C. W. Longenecker

“Never Give Up”.

W. Churchill

“Winners never quit and quitters never win”.

Anon

“If an individual sets an achievable goal and never gives up, they will either achieve their goal, or die trying.

If a civilization sets an achievable goal and never gives up, they will achieve their goal.

What shall we do?”.

Matthew Keith Groves

“You say this is a computer for ordinary people? Why would an ordinary person want a computer?”.

Hewlett Packard executive to Steve Wozniak regarding Apple prototype

“In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins - not through strength, but through persistence”.

Buddha

“Who dares, wins”.

W.Churchill

“If you think you’re beaten, you are

If you think you dare not, you don’t;

If you’d like to win but you think you can’t,

You can almost be certain you won’t.

If you think that you’ll lose, you are lost,

For out in the world you will find

Success begins with a person’s will;

It’s all in the state of the mind.

If you think you’re outclassed you are;

You’ve got to think high to rise.

You’ve just got to be sure of yourself

Before you can win the prize.

Life’s battles don’t always go

To a stronger or faster man;

But sooner or later the person who wins

Is the person that THINKS they can.”.

- Anon.

“If think you can’t, you’re right. If think you can, you’re right”.

Ken Hatton

“Don’t think “problem”, think “opportunity”“.

Unknown

Life is “trying things to see if they work”

Ray Bradbury

“Vision without action is daydreaming, and action without vision is a nightmare“.

Anon

“Things do not change; we change”.

Thoreau

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit“.

Aristotle

“Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways at the last minute, champagne in one hand, strawberries in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming “WOO HOO - That was Fun!” Live life to the fullest”.

Anon

“Every ceiling, when reached, becomes a floor, upon which one walks as a matter of course and prescriptive right“.

Aldous Huxley

“Leadership: The art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it“.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity”.

George Patton

Hope you’ll do any good with these.

This is Friday Blog Update, I haven’t done these for a bit of a time. There are few interesting things now happening on the blogosphere and internet marketing industry overall.

ShoeMoney’s Free Course

First things first. Shoemoney has released  12-week long internet marketing course for free. It includes things such as affiliate marketing, SEO, website making, PPC and other useful things. Shoemoney is known for some outstanding internet marketing successes so I think it’s going to be “healthy” for your business to at least take a look in that course, it’s free after all. And the course is not only for newbs,  I think experienced internet marketers will find their own gems as well. Sign up for the course.

World’s Oldest Blogger Has Passed Away

World’s oldest blogger - Maria Amelia Lopez who is 97 years old has passed away. Maria got all this world’s attention when her grandson set up a blog as her birthday present when she was 95. She mostly was doing video posting, instead of text. The blog’s language is Spanish, so if you have any knowledge in Spanish then you can visit her blog at amis95.blogspot.com R.I.P.

Google’s New Algorithm

I know your first thought reading the headline was “Oh noes, not another new algorithm from Google”. Nah, don’t worry about it. This algorithm is going to be for the employees.

The Internet search giant recently began crunching data from employee reviews and promotion and pay histories in a mathematical formula Google says can identify which of its 20,000 employees are most likely to quit.

Google officials are reluctant to share details of the formula, which is still being tested. The inputs include information from surveys and peer reviews, and Google says the algorithm already has identified employees who felt underused, a key complaint among those who contemplate leaving.

I guess Google just wants to algorithm everything that they can access to.

I am starting to like the big G more and more. My last post was about how Google released an amazing tool that will help affiliate marketers.

Now Google has stopped punishing the “trademark bidders”. Ahh.. yes, now you can actually bid on trademarks legally. I know some affiliates that have been trademark bidding, but they had to watch “over their shoulder” all the time because if G found out that you were bidding on trademarks - you were punished.

You want to compete with Apple ? Now you can do that. Want to compete with Coca-Cola and bid on “Coca-Cola” ? You can now do that as well.

Get your campaigns ready as this rule will set place on 4th June. The trademark bidding is going to be allowed in most countries - UK, USA, Canada, etc. Here is the full list of countries in which trademark bidding is allowed from now on.